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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Do customers like curtains?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-09-2015 06:39 AM
The concept of a "curtain call" goes all of the way back to the live-stage and vaudeville. The curtain for live acts is used to "hide" the change of acts coming/going on stage. When movies came out and were in theatres, not unlike their live counterparts, the concept of changing the "acts" remained. So when one transitioned from one act to another, you would have a curtain call. This can be from previews to feature or ads to previews...etc. Each act is unto itself. And yes, showing a "blank screen" is a sin and ruins the "magic."
One should not think of their movie experience as "looking at the screen." They should be looking at the movie which should replace the sense of looking at the screen but instead transform the viewer into the story that is being told. It is one reason flat screens have always been problematic for cinemas and just about every form of "enhancing" the movie experience has been to somehow make the screen unflat and more real-world sensing. That can be curved, 3-D (blech), dome, spherical...etc. Even "escape" is an attempt to eliminate the flat screen appearance.
The problem with non-flat screens are the geometric distortions that will typically ensue if special optics (or now digital distortion) are not used to deal with where the projector is with respect to the screen. However, those that prefer flat screens have merely acclimated to the perspective distortions of a flat screen. If you don't sit dead-center screen, your perspective on a flat screen will be a bunch of trapezoids...take a picture of the screen from your seat position...it will not look rectangular but a trapezoid.
Clearly, I've drifted off topic so lets pull that back. At the Uptown in DC (or the KB Cinema), when we had a flat previews in front of a scope feature (the notion of flat and scope versions of all previews was really more a later concept), I would always close the curtain between previews and feature. You think seeing the screen expand via masking is cool...for most, they will have opened whatever curtain they have to reveal a sea of black drape so the audience already has seen your hand. I only opened the grand drape enough to show the flat screen (had to, the Uptown didn't have motorized maskings)...so at the conclusion of the preview reel, I'd close the curtain down on the credits of the last preview and pull the curtain open all of the way for the scope feature. Let me tell you, if you are not ready for it, few things are more impressive than seeing a Cinerama screen (which is what the Uptown had/has) open way up for scope when you've only been seeing a portion of it. If you are sitting in the front half of the theatre, it wraps around you. A curtain call can definitely heighten the effect.
And yes, a curtain is essential to keeping a screen to last longer.
I do get, the generation that is watching movies today never grew up with classy theatres with the full drapery treatment (remember when appliances like TVs were furniture?) however, even "kids" can get when a performance is better than just seeing the movie. Don't get me wrong, you can't put lipstick on a pig (well you can but who would want to?)...you can fix a shoddy theatre/show with a curtain. But you can definitely put the icing on the cake by having a proper show that was worthy of going out in the first place. A curtain can certainly add to that.
The singles that have survived into this era have generally also had a performance that was notably better than the "mall" theatres or , at least, perceived to be better and something that one would not get in the home.
Again, if you want to be a 1st class theatre, you need (and to use) a grand drape, anything less is, at best, 2nd rate. And now, if you don't have proper masking to block off the unused screen, you are downright low-rent. Letterbox/Pillarboxing is for the home...and even they go out of their way to avoid that. Should be start stretching the image to ALWAYS fill the screen? Consumers have shown they will "put up" with that in numerous sports bars around the world.
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